Nicely put Mike. Its indeed quite pathetic of ECB to try and rig its own rules just to engineer an Ashes victory. To the credit of ECB, the country game has always been well organised and served as a learning ground for overseas cricketers. I think the Pakistanis and West Indians benefited the most. Now there arent many young Pakistanis and West Indians fine tuning their techniques and temperaments and world cricket is worse off for it. It didnt necessarily improve English cricket though.

I am a bit confused about the idea that English players cant play sheffield shield. I'm not aware why not. Andy Flower did, a pakistani (sorry cant remember who) did just this summer for south australia, and of course graham thorpe signed with NSW at the end of his career but didnt get a game. If their players arent good enough to get a game, or the shield doesnt pay well enough, or aussie teams won't pick a player who wants to play a couple of games, or because the "fringe" english players wouldnt actually get a game in the shield, thats a lesson to england.

Its not like our state teams are all about the national team - Victoria just won the shield with a team at least half of whom are over 30 - hardly in the long term interests of Australian test team.

Oh and Darren Pattinson, you know the english swing bowler, played one game for the vics this year.

Its not our fault that he doesnt get a game!

I wonder if anyone has asked Mr Morris and Mr Miller of the ECB just how many of their cricketers they think would actually be good enough to play in the Sheffield Shield competition? Then ask the chief selectors for the various states the same question and compare the answers?

The Shield selectors are not stupid people, if a player was good enough to be selected then they would be selected. Simple as that. Whilst Australia hasn't had a lot of imports over the years, there have been some memorable imports play in the Shield competition over the years. Some of those imports were: - Russ Surty, Ian Botham, Graeme Hick, Imran Khan and lately Younus Khan to name a few.

I think the ECB should take a collective valium and take a reality check.

The ECB could always employ someone to drop cricket balls in his path everywhere he goes - Opportunity knocks! Well said Messrs Holmans and Fraser.

Hi Mike
I agree that people including the ECB should stop fretting about Stuart Clark and Hughes playing some county cricket prior to the Ashes.

The ECB would be better advised to put it's energies and focus this summer into ensuring that England go into the Ashes with a) a world class coach and b) the best possible option for the captaincy. I believe this to be Pietersen because he is the only one that can psychologically intimidate the Australians and the only person in the England camp that the Asutralians genuinally fear.
I agree that

I think Glenn is right on the money here. I'm quite sure that English players would be picked in Shield teams if the players were there and the selectors thought they were appreciably better than the available local talent--surely these are fair criteria?

Who around the current England set-up would actually get a game for a state team? Flintoff and Pietersen for sure, Strauss and Vaughan (if he shows some form with Yorks) possibly. As heath said, thopse on the fringes--and some regulars too--simply wouldn't be picked, on the basis that they're not good enough.

As many players have found out, they'd be welcomed into Grade cricket though, which (definitely in Sydney and to a large extent Brisbane; I don't know about other cities) is of a comparable standard to 2nd XI (and possibly 2nd Division) County cricket. England were regularly picking Geraint Jones just before and after he was struggling to get a game in 1st grade in Brisbane.

And Strauss played for an NZ state last winter too.

another pathetic attempt by ECB to generate publicity for a cricket series which is deemed to be a mediocre affair. I would rather watch NZ vs West Indies than watching ashes. Its no better than aussies taking on Bangladesh

We could moan about the Aussies coming into County Cricket, but I dare say the likes of Amjad Khan and Robbie Joseph of Kent could learn quite a lot from Stuart Clark - how much poorer would county cricket have been without Hadlee, Rice, Richards (Viv and Barry!), Sobers, Langer, Warne, Imran, LeRoux, Steyn etc. It may seem like we are helping the Aussies a bit, but all's fair in love and war!